Parent To Parent Family Training On Adhd: Fill & Download for Free

In my years of observation and work with children and families I would say that what is woefully misunderstood about the ADHD symptoms is the ‘inconsistency’ in performance. A child can finish an assignment one day and not the next. They can fish for hours, (hypervigilance) but cannot stand in line for lunch without doing something wrong- touching or pushing the person in front, making noise- a variety of annoying behaviors that lead to consequences.Parents and teachers say ‘He does it on purpose, he’s just lazy, he was fine when he did this yesterday, he just wants to annoy today.’This leads to the child’s internalization of the ‘I’m just bad, or stupid or lazy.’ Problems are exacerbated by stress, sleep disorders, and often become issues of conduct. It’s hard to tease apart what is truly a function of the condition and what has been added on by virtue of long-term negativity.I used to train clinicians on ADHD and even THEY had difficulties accepting this notion. He can do a math problem one day and the next day he completely forgets it. There are the unknown and unobservable factors that even the child won’t consider problematic. Rough night’s sleep, the thought that a cousin is arriving Sat. an almost inaudible sound from a fan or light in the classroom. And the greatest one being just the very disorder itself.This symptom is not spoken of as frequently as the others but in my opinion- and from working with these kids at many levels I would consider it the most critical and the hardest for adults to manage.There has been no scientific research results that diet has impact upon behavior and ADHD . Results of such remain inconclusive. Still many groups and physicians continue to recommend dietary changes which often add more frustration and stress to the child and the family.

All known research suggests medication is the most effective therapy. Finding the right type of medication and the right dosage often takes time, and sometimes people give up too soon, but medication isn't always an option.Contrary to what one answerer suggests, people with untreated ADHD are more likely to suffer from severe depression that those who receive treatment--but treated or not, people with ADHD are highly prone to depression and anxiety. Functional depression is very common.In addition to medication, parents with CBT training who consistently apply those methods can be very helpful. Just understand that they are coping methods; they will not make the ADHD better.The problem with people suggesting that “parental involvement" is the appropriate response to a child with ADHD is that parenting a child with ADHD is extremely challenging. A child with ADHD will push even the most patient and understanding of parents to their limits. This means that parents are frequently tired and stressed, which is not good for a child with ADHD, who often ends up feeling like a nuisance, both at home and at school.You need to make choices based on the reality of your family situation, including the temperament of the parents, the needs of other children, and the outside demands on the time and attention of family members. If you take an idealistic stance, you may end up doing your child more harm than good.Parenting is more often than not trial-and-error. What works at one point may not work at another, and it's important to be flexible. If one thing doesn't work, it's good to say, “Okay, let's try something else.” Too many parents are shamed for using medication, but you do not have to be superhuman to be a good parent. Trying to be usually leads to failure.Personally, I was hesitant to put my child on ADHD medication when he was young, but it was just too hard. Nothing else was effective and he was unhappy and constantly frustrated. The medication was a lifesaver. He tried several different medications over the years, and eventually he stopped taking it. He may reach a point in time where he decides he needs to try it again (perhaps in college), but for now this is where we are: I take ADHD medication and my son doesn't. I really, really wish I had been able to take medication when I was a kid; it helps so much.In short: Parental time, attention, and input are essential for all kids. Most parents can't afford to provide a child with ADHD with all the time, attention, and input they would need, and even if they could, it would not reduce any of the symptoms of ADHD. Most children will do best with medication, but medication will not take the place of parental involvement. Be willing to try different options. Don't feel guilty.

My second child, a big bouncing baby boy, was a tough delivery. Born 2 weeks early and very blue, umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, looped between his legs, wrapped around one arm. Still, he weighed 7 lbs 12 oz. and I often wonder what would he have weighed if my doctor had not induced labor. It was the summer of '88 and the temperatures in the kitchens where I worked often reached 110 degrees.I had worked 55+ hours per week up to the day I gave birth, I was certain it was my fault. I had no insurance, and 6 yr old at home, and a baby on the way, and a man who said "it's not mine".He spent the first week in Neonatal Intensive Care. His first year he was so ill, in and out of hospitals, pneumonia, vague respiratory problems. When his teeth came in, (early again at 2 months) they were missing a half moon from the high dosages of antibiotics he had needed in those first months. I breast fed him and followed all the pediatricians instructions and at 2 months he weighed 23 lbs, at 3 months he was 30 lbs., a weight he maintained for the next 2 yrs.In spite of his size, his development was slow, he was slow to sit up, slow to walk, to talk. The doctors didn't seem worried and neither did I, after all his brother did everything for him, so I assumed it was a side effect of younger-older sibling bonding.True enough, when he did sit up, walk and then talk, it was like a race horse being let out of the gate for the race. Any worries I had dissipated for a while. I was amazed often at how brilliant he sometimes seemed, even if it was often dangerous. He was a tiny little escape artist, fearless and climbed everything. The problem was he was very good at getting away from you, it only takes a second. He was found wandering the neighborhood after having escaped the babysitter's watchful eye, twice before he was out of diapers.As he grew, all the unusual behaviors, I chalked up to the difference in children, he was an individual with his own traits and a child, his thoughts were just, well, his own. He cried a lot, but just as quickly could smile at the site of his "LaLa lady", a statue of an 18th century lady in pink that played some pretty tune when you wound her up. He had worked hard to retrieve her from a shelf where she had resided for 15 yrs quite well until he decided she was his toy. LaLaLady stayed with him for the next 8 yrs. slowly deteriorating until she no longer played for him. The day she stopped was devastating for him.When he was 3 I learned that be very careful what you do! We were outside once, and he needed to pee during potty training and there wasn't a bathroom in site. Being a modern "Mom", I took him behind a tree and had him pee on it. I spent the next 2 yrs trying to break him of going outside to pee on a tree in the backyard. Poop = toilet, pee = tree.There were dozens of things like that. The concept of humor, what was funny and why something was funny fascinated him and he was always trying to make up new jokes. Trouble was that none of them were funny or even made sense, this fixation has never disappeared.He always had a smile that lit up his entire face. His eyes sparkled, his smile was so bright! It was the one thing that never changed from a baby to the day he ran away from home.Then came school. Remember, I believed I had a normal, and in some ways a very bright little boy. He was and is bright, but he wasn't normal. Within weeks, I was receiving notices almost daily about inappropriate behavior in the bathroom. He was trying to fondle the other boys. Before the first semester was over, he was forbidden to go to the bathroom with any of the other children or to play unsupervised with them.This became the norm. I took him to a child psychologist, convinced he had been molested or that he had suffered some trauma that he just couldn't tell me about.During that time period, I broke my leg, severely, requiring 10 months of help and physical therapy, when I returned to work, he:1. Skipped school for 3 days as a second grade student, (impressive on how he got away with it).2. Locked me out of my own home, while still on crutches, until I wet myself.3. Stole cash from my purse and bought friends a ton of candy and other garbage, $800 worth of friendship.No, says the therapist, he's just acting out because he craves my attention more, so I enrolled him in little league and after 4 practices and 2 games where my son called the ref and all the other players names, foul filthy names.Like something out of control he sexually assaulted a 4th grade girl on the playground in front of attendants.The girl's parents were threatening lawsuits or legal action unless I did "something" about my son. I committed him to a local mental health facility for a 10 day observation stint. They labeled him ADHD and sent him home. It was a diagnosis I didn't agree with, and it turned out I was right, but that was a hellish battle, too.A return to school and to work, that was short lived for both of us. I worked for the local judicial system, and finally cornered the Head of Juvenile Probation and begged for help before my son did real damage to some poor girl. The previous assault was minor (if there is such a thing), but I was well and truly terrified of and for my 7 yr old child.They set up a case for us, as I was now completely broke. The mental health cost, were astronomical after insurance stops paying. The courts helped and provided therapy for both of us. Still he, struggled and acted out, and I was losing the battle. The hardest words I have ever uttered were, "Your honor, I need help, I am no longer an effective parent to this child."My son spent the next 22 months in a juvenile psychiatric facility, being the youngest child there.Several diagnosis's later, I was allowed to bring him home for good. We had a new therapist, a kind patient woman, who diagnosed him with Asperger's Syndrome, a part of the autism spectrum. New meds were given, and the start of weekly therapy sessions that lasted until his 18th birthday were begun.The meds made him sick and lethargic, and at other times hyperactive and irritable. The meds also made him gain weight, a lot of it.He returned to school, struggling just as much as before but without the sexual aspect and I worked more than ever. The bills were huge, in spite of the insurance I had finally managed to acquire. He was a bright child that refused to do any form of school work. He understood some of it, and refused to ask questions when he didn't. He just wasn't interested.Leftover health problems from my life before he was born suddenly became prevalent, (it couldn't be that I was wore out like a candle burnt at both ends), anyway I was declared disabled and was now at home full time.I really thought this was a good thing. He was 12 now and there was always a positive moment, every day between us.He learned to cook with my help. He likes to cook and is reasonably good at it. He spent 5 yrs wanting to be a "Japanese Sushi Chef", even trying to learn Japanese in High School.He graduated high school, it was a hard road, but he did it and had grades decent enough to get into the local Ivy Tech with grants.That did not go as well for him, and he dropped out, but still he smiled every day. Again that smile was so bright.By 22 he had been fired from 6 different jobs, for making sexually inappropriate jokes or comments but had finally gotten a full time position as a clerk at the nearby convenience store. He also had a girlfriend whom had been a part of his narrow circle of friends for 4 yrs.Imagine my surprise when he announced that he was transgender."What about X?" I asked.The look of shock of on her face was clear when he announced that he still planned to marry her.The girlfriend, wasn't really a girlfriend, but he did not know that and was devastated when he learned the truth. They had never even exchanged a kiss.He had never so much as talked with her about romance and yet had planned to marry her. There were never any displays of affection that were usual in young adults, but in his mind it was everything, she was everything.A few months later, now starting to dress differently, my new daughter announced a friend from NY was coming to visit, someone she had met on the internet. Another transgendered individual arrived, in the process of going from male to female and I thought this was a good thing. My child will have someone to help him / her go through this process.Two days later my son, now daughter left and I haven't seen her since except for 2 hrs at one Christmas 2 yrs ago.We have occasional contact, but she is angry and hostile towards me, blaming for every aspect of her life, yet refusing to actually talk about any specific topic. When we do talk, her sex life is all she wants to talk about. She is explicit in her details and seems bent on "shocking" me with some new sex thing (asexual, pansexual, infantilism, cutting, s&m, even prostitution). She has kept contact with other family members, but again, sex is the hot topic and shock seems to be the goal. She has waffled back and forth with tirades about how we don't accept her, not true at all, but we can not convince her that we do accept and love her unconditionally.She now denies ever having wanted to be a Japanese Sushi Chef, says that I threw her away and never called or visited. Wow, knife to the heart right there, and not true - his absence was physically painful, I still cry to think of how much I missed him in my arms, how silent the house was, my oldest was a teenager and busy doing teenager things, and coming home was something I dreaded as my youngest was not there. We were incomplete without him.I don't deny having a few concerns, but not for the reasons everyone seems to think. I am concerned because after all I went through and how much I wanted and tried to understand, I was unaware of how much she lives inside her own thoughts, lost and locked in there, with non reality, having conversations with real people that only occur in her head and holding grudges based on those conversations. I am concerned because she is not mentally well or stable and right now every sentence is suspect. She a notorious liar, by her own words. I could care less whether he is a he or a she, I just want her to be stable and happy and right now she is neither.The last I've heard is that she is in San Jose. It's been 4 yrs and there is nothing I can do about any of it and the pictures I get haven't contained a smile in years.To date, I still don't really know what is wrong with my child, but it doesn't change how hard it was and still is to be a parent to a disabled child.Sorry so long winded, there was so much more, but there it is and thank you for getting this far.